In the data processing arts, it is well known to employ memory devices in which relative movement occurs between a storage medium and one or more read/write heads. For example, magnetic and optical disk devices, tape drives, and magnetic drum devices employ such an arrangement.
Such devices are prone to generating errors when they are subjected to mechanical vibration and/or mechanical shocks when in operation. Such errors may arise, for example, in the process of storing the information on the media or in reading the information stored thereon. Generally, when vibration or shock is of sufficient magnitude to displace the read/write heads relative to the storage medium, there is a high probability that an error will result, since data will not be read from or written to where it is supposed to be, due to the temporary shift in location between the heads and the storage medium relative to one another.
Shocks and vibration to this type of equipment may originate from many sources, such as accidental bumping by equipment operators while a memory operation is in progress; proximity of heavy construction or other sources creating periodic small tremors; motion induced by the equipment environment (e.g. operation of the equipment in a moving vehicle); vibration caused by other components of the data processing system (e.g. printers, card punches, robot-controlled equipment, etc.); and operation of the equipment in an earthquake-prone region.
As mentioned above, vibration- and shock-induced errors can result in the loss of data as it is being stored onto the storage medium and/or as it is being read from the storage medium, with corresponding results ranging in effect from the merely inconvenient to the catastrophic. There is an urgent need in the data processing arts, therefore, to provide an inexpensive, yet effective means for attenuating the shocks and vibrations to which the above types of data storage devices are commonly subjected.